Whenever the phrase 'evolutionary psychology' is used in a blog post it makes me physically cringe.
One of the greatest problems in the social sciences is the apparent inability to distinguish between cultural influences and fundamental genetic influences. A whole host of so-called 'evolved behavior' is really little more than cultural norms that people have adopted and now view as natural and normal. Claims that these behaviors are genetically hardwired and subject to natural selection like other traits are largely unsupported. The whole field is highly questionable and has little real value or scientific rigor.
The emphasis on a behaviour being genetic in origin is frequently absent in common use of "evolutionary psychology". A trait being the result of evolution, even if not darwinian evolution, is quite useful to know, and is usually clearly the case when we can tell the adaptive purpose of a behaviour, see it replicated across cultures, and so on.
Behaviors are subject to natural selection, just like biological organisms are. Some behaviors are innate, others are cultural. Even better, culture is often times elaborate clothing for innate behaviors. Darwin cuts deeper than people give him credit for.
As of behaviors of biological creatures being infinitely malleable and equally valid, like the software on a computer, i.e. behavior being arbitrarily "socially constructed", please explain the spider. Or the bower bird. Or falling in love.
> A whole host of so-called 'evolved behavior' is really little more than cultural norms that people have adopted and now view as natural and normal.
That sounds plausible, but we really don’t know that it’s true. It’s obviously considerably more than just culture or genes, because, among other things, mating practices and thus gene flow are culturally determined. And then there’s epigenetics and confounds.
> The whole field is highly questionable and has little real value or scientific rigor.
This is true of all of mainstream evolutionary biology. Here is an article[1] touching on that.
Fascinating. Obviously makes one self-conscious about posting on a public forum that tracks status with points.
I really like the idea that the point here is not happiness, but to try and minimize the damage to others from our own narcissistic tendencies.
I will just add that the opposites of envy and resentment are admiration and gratitude. I believe cultivating the mindset of admiration and gratitude is healthy response to these dark tendencies.
Very true. FWIW, you've used the exact terms I've embraced myself.
As it happens, such wisdom flows in all the places one would expect it to flow. For example https://www.catholiccompany.com/content/7-deadly-sins, which I just duckduckgoed. Yet it is often times so hard to open ourselves to it.
>"A common belief is that people turn to porn because they can’t find sex or intimacy in real life. Teach turns this logic on its head: people don’t want sex or intimacy in real life. Thus, porn."
The article dedicates a large chunk to consumption of porn or practice of certain kinks as an example of that theory, but there's not a mention of a very obvious fact, namely that plenty of couples do those same things including together, and they don't fall into either category presented in that quote.
The entire argument looks at behavior through the lens of people who, by definition, already have reasons to be very envious which is tautological. Honestly it just sounds like one more book in the "angsty man self help" genre.
edit: just saw the top comment under the post after writing this one and couldn't agree more:
"People protect themselves with the smokescreen of "everybody" or "people". Every claim Ed Teach makes in his book about his fellow human beings is actually a revelation of who he is, not of who everybody else is. And as for his claim that "No one ever asks, 'Am I the narcissist who's hurting my family?'" then he is either a liar or has had very limited social experience."
What a strange, rambling, yet somehow-compelling read.
I can't say I got anything specific out of it, and maybe I'm just posting this so that others will waste the same 30 minutes of their lives that I, now, can never have back.
But I can't help feeling somehow like it was worth the time.
The parts about sex, envy, and denial read like incel philosophy, written from another perspective. I.e. “women aren’t sleeping with me, because they want to deny me the pleasure of sex.”
Overall the impression is that Teach sees everyone as being like the main character in There in there Will be Blood: https://youtu.be/cHuSRHxBgUg
Such an unblinking read. My only fear is that we are more likely to think this is really about someone else, and not keep these insights only reserved as a tool for introspection.
Even if some hard parts take one by surprise or resonate, sure, reflect, and then I think it's impossible to both recognize those parts and then do anything like them again. That's what makes it amazing writing, when you can't unread it.
Edit (later): There is something about psychology that pathologizes everything equally. There came a point where I started looking at what he meant by deprivation, and he makes it into a negative-moralization of wanting to be desired. What makes his analysis so compelling is that it logically lands every single time and does it so satisfyingly because it is predicated on a single basic inconsistency, and when your system is inconsistent you can prove anything in it.
Taking the basic human want to be desired by others, pathologizing it into a negative extreme, and then producing these parables that reduce to the characters not disproving the pathologized negative definition of their normal desire, is absolutely his hustle. Maybe I should thank him for letting me know that I was the sort of person he thought he could fool! Love the writing, but when the game rails seep through it feels a bit weird.
However, if it's true that economics is the dismal science, I have the impression that psychology is the cruel one.
I agree with the people in the comment section at that blog who say Last Psychiatrist seems mentally unwell.
He struck me as a Holden Caulfield type back when he was running the Last Psychiatrist blog. Everyone being a narcissist seemed the conclusion one draws based on their own issues.
I'm not sure if you are joking but you are of course implying to disagree with Last Psychiatrist is to confirm he is right about everything because disagreeing is resisting the truth.
When someone disagrees with a freudian, it's because they secretly know Freud is right about everything but are in denial.
Freud's theories are not provable or disprovable, if you want to kill your father you have an oedipal complex, if not you are repressing your oedipal complex. It's not subject to evidence since any event is explained under the freudian framework.
Last psychiatrist is presumably the "last" psychiatrist because the field has moved on from Freud's non empirical parlor tricks.
I am imagining a scenario where someone who speaks English as a second language and has limited vocabulary has just been categorized as a… someone not good…
It's supposed to shift focus from your identity to your actions.
"I code for a living" / "I code often" or even "I like coding" are very different phrases than accepting the programmer identity/label.
It's not about what you are, but what you actually do. Focusing on your actions instead of yourself is a lot less narcissistic.
I think the 'am' constraint is meant to force you to shift your perspective from an internal frame of what you think you 'are' to an external frame of what do you 'do' through actions to/for other people and the world in general. Maybe these actions support what would be on your 'am' list, but maybe they don't and that might be a hint that you may not be who you think you are.
I read the `practice this' part as meaning that you should actively be thinking more about how your actions affect the people and world around you, and less about how the people and the world are affecting you.
Readit News
One of the greatest problems in the social sciences is the apparent inability to distinguish between cultural influences and fundamental genetic influences. A whole host of so-called 'evolved behavior' is really little more than cultural norms that people have adopted and now view as natural and normal. Claims that these behaviors are genetically hardwired and subject to natural selection like other traits are largely unsupported. The whole field is highly questionable and has little real value or scientific rigor.
As of behaviors of biological creatures being infinitely malleable and equally valid, like the software on a computer, i.e. behavior being arbitrarily "socially constructed", please explain the spider. Or the bower bird. Or falling in love.
That sounds plausible, but we really don’t know that it’s true. It’s obviously considerably more than just culture or genes, because, among other things, mating practices and thus gene flow are culturally determined. And then there’s epigenetics and confounds.
> The whole field is highly questionable and has little real value or scientific rigor.
This is true of all of mainstream evolutionary biology. Here is an article[1] touching on that.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/28/do-we-need-a...
I really like the idea that the point here is not happiness, but to try and minimize the damage to others from our own narcissistic tendencies.
I will just add that the opposites of envy and resentment are admiration and gratitude. I believe cultivating the mindset of admiration and gratitude is healthy response to these dark tendencies.
As it happens, such wisdom flows in all the places one would expect it to flow. For example https://www.catholiccompany.com/content/7-deadly-sins, which I just duckduckgoed. Yet it is often times so hard to open ourselves to it.
The article dedicates a large chunk to consumption of porn or practice of certain kinks as an example of that theory, but there's not a mention of a very obvious fact, namely that plenty of couples do those same things including together, and they don't fall into either category presented in that quote.
The entire argument looks at behavior through the lens of people who, by definition, already have reasons to be very envious which is tautological. Honestly it just sounds like one more book in the "angsty man self help" genre.
edit: just saw the top comment under the post after writing this one and couldn't agree more:
"People protect themselves with the smokescreen of "everybody" or "people". Every claim Ed Teach makes in his book about his fellow human beings is actually a revelation of who he is, not of who everybody else is. And as for his claim that "No one ever asks, 'Am I the narcissist who's hurting my family?'" then he is either a liar or has had very limited social experience."
I can't say I got anything specific out of it, and maybe I'm just posting this so that others will waste the same 30 minutes of their lives that I, now, can never have back.
But I can't help feeling somehow like it was worth the time.
(Now, how to get even with those who didn't read the whole article?)
Overall the impression is that Teach sees everyone as being like the main character in There in there Will be Blood: https://youtu.be/cHuSRHxBgUg
Even if some hard parts take one by surprise or resonate, sure, reflect, and then I think it's impossible to both recognize those parts and then do anything like them again. That's what makes it amazing writing, when you can't unread it.
Edit (later): There is something about psychology that pathologizes everything equally. There came a point where I started looking at what he meant by deprivation, and he makes it into a negative-moralization of wanting to be desired. What makes his analysis so compelling is that it logically lands every single time and does it so satisfyingly because it is predicated on a single basic inconsistency, and when your system is inconsistent you can prove anything in it.
Taking the basic human want to be desired by others, pathologizing it into a negative extreme, and then producing these parables that reduce to the characters not disproving the pathologized negative definition of their normal desire, is absolutely his hustle. Maybe I should thank him for letting me know that I was the sort of person he thought he could fool! Love the writing, but when the game rails seep through it feels a bit weird.
However, if it's true that economics is the dismal science, I have the impression that psychology is the cruel one.
He struck me as a Holden Caulfield type back when he was running the Last Psychiatrist blog. Everyone being a narcissist seemed the conclusion one draws based on their own issues.
When someone disagrees with a freudian, it's because they secretly know Freud is right about everything but are in denial.
Freud's theories are not provable or disprovable, if you want to kill your father you have an oedipal complex, if not you are repressing your oedipal complex. It's not subject to evidence since any event is explained under the freudian framework.
Last psychiatrist is presumably the "last" psychiatrist because the field has moved on from Freud's non empirical parlor tricks.
Describe yourself: your traits, qualities, both good and bad.
Do not use the word ‘am.’
Practice this.
I read the `practice this' part as meaning that you should actively be thinking more about how your actions affect the people and world around you, and less about how the people and the world are affecting you.